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Occupy Moves to a Bank

This afternoon in San Francisco, the Occupy SF folks moved into the lobby of Bank of America in the financial district. As this is written, there have been about a half dozen arrests. The occupiers are primarily peaceful, chanting and ‘om-ing.’ They did pitch a tent inside. This brings up a couple of thoughts. First, with the police raids and clearing of Occupy camps around the country, then the returning of the movement folks, one group that is profiting off the whole movement so far is merchants who sell tents!

Here’s another thought: A couple weeks ago, there was a internet-driven push (which actually started back in 2009, but took a while to really take hold) encouraging people to move from the big banks to smaller locally owned banks or credit unions. The protests of the Occupy people get publicity, and I get that, but instead of ‘taking over’ the lobby of a bank, wouldn’t it do more to alter the big banks’ behavior if all those occupy folks went out and each got several people they know to withdraw all their funds from those big banks and move them to smaller ones and credit unions? Just a thought.